Parents face truancy action;In Brief

Parents who collude with their truanting children should be penalised, headteachers claim. They have urged the Government's Social Exclusion Unit not to be "squeamish" in dealing with families where the children are kept off school with the knowledge of parents.

The National Association of Head Teachers, in its submission on truancy and exclusions to the SEU, described a hard-core of parents who allowed their children to stay off school to help with the family, to go shopping or to take long holidays during term-time.

One sanction might be to reduce state benefits for defaulting parents.

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